He grunted. “Yeah, okay. Thanks, kid.”
I handed him the box and he went inside, shutting the door on my face. What? No tip? I stepped away from the door, but instead of getting on the bike, I zipped around the side of the house (super speed really comes in handy) and into the back yard. There were lots of foliage and tropical plants back here and the neighbor’s house wasn’t even visible, so it made the job even easier.
He was sitting in a patio chair with the open pizza box beside him. I stepped into his line of sight and he stiffened, standing up immediately. “What the hell are you doing, kid?”
He came over; his body language said he was ready for a fight. I kicked his legs out from under him and he fell back, hitting his head on the concrete. He lay there unmoving. I used my foot and pushed him into the pool.
If the body was found, it would appear that he slipped, hit his head, and fell into the pool and drowned.
When I was sure he was dead, I dialed G.R. “It’s done,” I said into the phone. Then I hung up.
He appeared two seconds later, stepping through the door/portal he created, and looked at the body floating in the pool.
“Job complete.”
I started to walk away, but then I stopped. I had to ask. Even if he didn’t answer. “Why this one?”
“That Viper in his driveway came from my lot. He hasn’t paid his lease in six months.”
Revenge, then. I nodded and walked away. I ignored the sick feeling in my stomach. When I stepped around the house and into the foliage, I heard the water in the pool ripple. Curious, I turned around, keeping myself concealed behind a large palm. I watched as the Reaper waded through the shallow end toward the body. He didn’t touch him but hovered his palm over the man’s back.
I watched, waiting to see what would happen. Just a few seconds ticked by and then the man’s spirit began to rise up out of his body. It was green. I thought G.R. was going to talk to him—maybe recruit another Escort.
He wasn’t looking for another Escort.
When the green spirit hovered over the Reaper’s head, he raised up his arms, looked up toward the sky, and then he proceeded to eat the spirit.
He literally opened his mouth as wide as it would go and began to suck the spirit into his mouth. But the spirit didn’t just go into his mouth; it seeped into his ears and up his nose. The spirit didn’t struggle; it didn’t try to get away. I wasn’t even sure if it knew what was going on.
I wasn’t sure if I knew what was going on.
Was this what he did to all the people he killed—that the Escorts killed?
This was some disturbing shit.
When he was done chowing down on spirit, he waded out of the pool, leaving the body right where it floated. Then with a single wave of his hand, the portal opened and he stepped through, leaving the scene of the crime—of his meal—behind.
I didn’t loiter on the property. I zipped around the house and forced myself to jog to my bike like a guy who just delivered a pizza and who didn’t witness the Grim Reaper eating the green spirit of a man he’d just killed.
I put the bike back in the parking garage where I found it (but kept the helmet—since my hair and therefore DNA was now in it) and climbed on the closest bus. I rode that and got off after three stops. I got on another bus, rode that for two stops. Then I got off and walked three blocks, passing a city garbage truck on the sidewalk. I tossed the helmet into the back and it was immediately crushed into the already huge pile of trash. Another block passed and I ducked into a parking garage. I went up three flights of stairs and climbed onto another motorcycle—this one mine. It was completely different than the one I borrowed earlier. This one was a bike built for speed—something flashy that rich people drove. If you wanted to blend in around Beverly Hills, then you drove something expensive.
I pointed the bike toward my beach house. Toward Frankie. I pictured her sitting on the beach, her toes buried in the sand. I wondered if she would talk to me when I got home. I probably didn’t deserve it. I still hoped she would. Right then, I would have loved to hear her yell at me, to see her roll her eyes. Hell, I would’ve even listened to her insult me.
Anything to drown out my own thoughts.
Because right now I was thinking I didn’t like myself.
Right now I was feeling guilty. Guilty about what I just did. And I was also feeling slightly freaked out that I kind of fed my boss.
Why would he eat a spirit? There was perfectly good pizza right there if he was hungry.
Something told me pizza wouldn’t have conquered his kind of hunger.
It didn’t matter anyway. This whole thing started out as being about getting the best of him and doing the job. And now… now I wasn’t sure what anything was about.
The only thing I really knew for sure was that I wanted to see Frankie.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Sand - small, loose grains of worn or disintegrated rock.”
Frankie
I came to the conclusion that I would never get tired of staring at the ocean. It didn’t matter how long I sat here or how long I stared because the sights were forever changing. There was always a new wave to look at, a boat, a bird, or a person.
The ocean had a way of making a person feel small, but not in a bad way. In a way that made you feel like you were part of something bigger. It was humbling, but it was also inspiring.
Even though Charming left me here while he was off committing a crime, I couldn’t feel sorry about experiencing this. I still felt thankful that I hadn’t gone another day without seeing something outside the walls of Alaska.
The sun was beginning to sink behind the water when I felt his presence behind me. I didn’t have to look to know it was him. My body had a way of knowing when he was near. He approached slowly and I stiffened. He didn’t tell me where he was going today or what he was doing, but I knew.
I hated it.
“There enough sand here for the both of us?” he asked, standing just slightly behind me.
The insecurity in his voice had me patting the empty space beside me.
“You’ve been down here all day, haven’t you?”
I glanced over. He was still wearing those jeans, but that was all. No shirt and no shoes. He stretched his legs out in front of him and propped himself up with the heel of each hand just slightly behind his back. I wondered if he was doing it on purpose, displaying his perfectly cut abs just to throw me off. It didn’t matter because it wasn’t going to work.
“I sat on the deck for a while,” I answered. “But yeah, mostly I was down here all day.”